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The trial for Bryan Kohberger, the man accused of murdering four University of Idaho students, is expected to get underway this summer.
While both sides are finalizing their lists of witnesses, making sure they’ve got their evidence and necessary documents in order, one key thing is still missing from this case: the actual murder weapon. Now, a community effort hopes to change that.
"I’m not used to having over a million views for any particular post on places like Facebook," said Jason Jensen, a licensed private investigator with 30 years of experience.
Over the years, he has worked on several high-profile cases, like the JonBenet Ramsey case and OJ Simpson’s. He’s not involved in Kohberger’s case, but has been following it closely.
What they're saying:
"The thing that I find most intriguing about it is the fact that the murder weapon is missing," Jensen said.
Which is why on June 21 and 22, he’s scheduled a search to find the knife used in the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle, and he’s looking for volunteers. The plan is to search for a 35-mile area.
"I think there's a good probability that the knife would be found on the route between Moscow, Idaho and Pullman, Washington, along the routes of highway 95 and then north up highway 195," Jensen said.
He adds, given Kohberger’s reported fascination with serial killer Ted Bundy, Jensen believes if Kohberger is behind these crimes, he could have thrown the knife out of his car. "One of the things that Ted Bundy was notorious about other than the crimes themselves, but he would panic, and as he was leaving the scene of where he left bodies behind, he would throw things out of the car on the way from where the bodies were at," Jensen said.
Court documents from March of this year revealed Kohberger’s Amazon history showed he purchased a Ka-bar knife eight months prior to the Idaho student murders.
"If we find it, the thing to do is freeze what we're doing, back out of the scene, call the police, have them come down and process it as a follow-up crime scene, because there may be other evidence present, not just the knife," Jensen said.
He told FOX 13 Seattle he has done a lot of weapon searches, but this will be his first time searching for a knife. He also added that, 90% of the time, items like this are often found by accident.
The Source: Information in this story comes from original reporting by FOX 13 Seattle reporter Shirah Matsuzawa.
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